We need to talk about this
by a-superhuman-sort-of-love
Summary: My first fic. Set directly after 'Who Died and Made You King' Michael and Maria have an argument, and decide they need to have a little chat
1. Chapter 1

Maria DeLuca stood by Max and Liz, chatting about meaningless topics such as Chemistry tests and what was on at the movies right now. It had been pretty dead at the Crashdown recently, and Liz (unlike Maria) was fortunate enough to be granted the week off. There had been only two customers in all day with the exception of Max and Liz, who were starting to really bug Maria. They couldn't keep their hands off each another, and although they were making their efforts to include Maria, they were completely immersed in their own private bubble. Just before Maria gave in and throttled one of the two, a third customer sauntered in and took a seat at one of the other tables. Maria nearly tripped over herself in her haste to get away from the loved-up pair, who were now holding hands across the table.

Ugh. How sickening.

Maria took the man's order and told him that it would be ready in around five minutes. Walking over to the kitchen, she repeated the order to Michael as carelessly as she could, who greeted her with a 'do I give a damn?' kind of look.

Maria raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"Nothing." He looked away from her and switched the grill on, beginning to heat up a long gone cold patty.

She stood there, watching him flip the burger before replying with "fine" and turning her back on him.

A clang filled Maria's ears as she heard a spatula being thrown down. "God Maria, what is up with you?"

Maria spun round and looked him straight in the eye. "What is wrong with me? What is wrong with _me_?! You, Michael Guerin, is what is wrong with me!"

Mr Parker looked up from his receipts and rushed over to the two. "Whoa you guys, time out. Go take a break and come back when you've cooled off." Maria glared at Michael before storming off into the locker room.

She heard the doors to the kitchen being slammed open, and Michael came right up to Maria, his arms outstretched. "Go on then, say it."

Maria groaned. "Say what, Michael?"

"Why've you been so cold? Why are you BEING so cold?"

"Do you need a list?"

"Okay then" Maria's jaw jutted out and she folded her arms. "All that stuff you said when you went on your whole 'I'm a King' ego-trip. That I'd be better off dead. That I was annoying and I never shut up. Oh, and that you'd 'SACRIFICED' going back to Antar for me, and that I'd been 'ungrateful' enough to break up with you. I don't know about you, but for me, that was just the icing on the cake."

"And- and you're so goddamn emotional. You're either the most perfect boyfriend in the world or the biggest dickhead I've ever seen. There isn't an in-between. Need more? Cos I can go on for hours."

"Look, I said sorry for all that stuff. Maria-" he looked to the ceiling. "I didn't mean it. Of course I don't want you dead. And I was... I was just bitter that we broke up. But you aren't exactly easy yourself."

Maria still had her arms folded. "Uh-huh?"

"Oh _come on_, you know you are. Why did you break up with me? To 'follow your dreams' and all that crap. And I let you go. But then next thing I hear is that you turned down your record deal because it was too 'Kylie' for you. Even though you were near euphoric when you got offered it. So euphoric in fact, that you decided it would suddenly be fine to have a little one-off fling with Michael. And you really thought that I wasn't gonna take that as a sign?" He grunted and ran a hand though his hair. "You know- I just can't keep up with you."

Maria looked down at her shoes. "I know, I know, I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry ok? But I had to break up with you... its too hard doing this."

Michael was really close now. She lifted her head to meet his gaze, eyes flickering back and forth from one eye to another. His breath was warm and smelt like Friday nights and Cheetos. "This?" he breathed onto her face, and kissed her.

Forgetting that they were meant to be having an argument, Maria's fingers tangled in Michael's hair as he pushed her back onto the lockers. He hoisted Maria's legs up round his waist and left his hands on her thighs.

"Are you guys ready to-" Liz's dad pushed through the door and put his hands over his eyes when he saw what the two were doing. "Oh, right, I'm sorry, just if you could- whenever you're ready-"

"Oh my god, Mr Parker! I'm so sorry!" gasped Maria. "We'll be out right now." But Liz's dad was already gone.

Michael let go of Maria as they straightened themselves out. Maria looked straight into Michael's eyes.

"We're gonna have to talk about this."

"Deal" agreed Michael as the pair rushed to continue their jobs. Neither could look straight at Mr Parker for the rest of the day.


	2. Chapter 2

Maria stood shivering in the back alley to the Crashdown. Drawing her thin jacket round her shaking shoulders, she cursed under her breath at Michael's tardiness. Where was he? Why was he taking so much time? Just as she was about to stride in and bust his ass for taking so long, the door swung in her face and hit her hard on the nose.

"Jeez, Michael!" She covered her nose with a hand to find a warm trickle of blood running down her face. "Fantastic. A nosebleed. My day just keeps on improving in twists and bounds."

"Oh, god, Maria, are you alright?" he reached out a hand only to have Maria to swat it away. She sighed. "I'm fine. Have you got any tissues?"

"Uh, yeah." Michael reached into his pocket to produce a bundle of crusty tissues.

Maria wrinkled up her inconveniently pouring-with-blood nose and pushed his wrist away from her. "Ew, Michael, they're used!"

Looking down at his hand he realized what she was saying was true. "Oh" he said, ungracefully stuffing them back into his pocket.

"It doesn't matter, I think I've got some in my car anyway." As she walked over to her car, Michael jogged up behind her.

"Hey, I was just wondering if I could maybe borrow your car?"

She raised an eyebrow before tossing him the keys. "Whatever" she said, walking off. _On a scale of one to ten,_ she thought to herself, _that was pretty lame_. _He wanted to meet me so that he could borrow my car? Wow. Just wow._

She felt his hand clamp down on her shoulder, and she spun on her heel. "What now?! The mints are in the tray, and you have to push the key in if you want the car to start-"

"No, no, it's not that. I want YOU to come with ME. In the car. It won't be long, I promise."

_Gross_, she thought. _He couldn't at least have phrased that a little better? "_I thought we agreed to no more one-time stands-"

"No, Maria, no!" He laid both hands on Maria's shoulders. "I want to take you someplace, but I don't have a car to take you with. But we have to go more or less now."

A deep pink colour flooded Maria's cheeks as she realized what he meant. "Oh. Alright. Let's go."

Maria kept quiet after that. She didn't even complain when Michael partly melted her steering wheel with his anxiousness about getting to wherever he was taking her. She was perfectly silent, in fact, until Michael's reckless driving almost knocked over a lady in crutches crossing the road.

"Whoa there kid, who even taught you to drive?" she exclaimed. "Bear in mind that if you get locked up for homicide you can probably just click your heels and fly off back home. But not me, no."

"Look, can you just calm down already? I know what I'm doing." He lifted a hand with the intention of soothing Maria and then but it back down at her violent reaction.

By the end of the journey Maria had a very strong reason to question whether or not Michael had really passed his driving test, but thankfully they arrived without any casualties. It took a moment for Maria to work out why they were stopping because their destination looked near identical to every other dried-up field of land they'd been driving past for the last half hour. Only when Michael got out and opened the door for her did she realize.

He held out a hand. "Thanks" said Maria cautiously, letting him help her out of her seat. She couldn't recall him ever offering a hand to her... well, ever. "Where are we?"

"We're at the place I come to whenever I'm angry with you, Max, Isabel, or anyone else."

"Huh. You must come here a lot then."

He grinned. "That's my point."

They leant against the fence together, looking out onto the ever-fading twilight. Dry desert land stretched out for maybe a mile, before dramatically steepening into a large rocky cliff. The whole piece of land resembled a shallow bowl, with dusty sand covering all sides. A few various shrubs sprouted from the dead earth, but overall there was no green life in sight. A cold breeze ruffled Maria's hair and she shivered a little at the winds icy touch.

Michael glanced over and began to take off his coat. "Here, take this" he said, passing her his massive brown overcoat.

"You sure?" asked Maria with already one arm in the jacket. It completely swamped her but it was at least warm and smelt strongly of Michael- Snapple and too much discount cologne.

Maria was forced to notice how tightly fitted Michael's top was. He caught her staring but she tried to distract the obvious admiring of Michael's well toned body with concern for his well being. "Won't you get cold?"

"Nah, magic alien powers I guess." He winked and Maria was forced to smile.

Maria's expression turned coy as she turned to face him. The hill was so steep that it gave her an idea.

"Race you to the bottom."

The corner of his mouth turned up a little and a competitive glint flashed in his eye. "You're on."

They held each other's gazes for a few heartbeats longer, before leaping over the fence and beginning to run. They giggled and shrieked the whole way down the hill before collapsing into a heap at the bottom. Michael wrapped an arm around Maria as they both tried to get their breath back.

The stars were becoming more and more apparent as the night fell deeper and deeper. They twinkled like large silvery eyes, billions of them, dotted all over the deepening blue sky.

"It's so pretty" murmured Maria.

Michael gave no reply, just brushed a small strand of hair behind her ear.

"Are we gonna talk?" Maria felt his chest hum whenever he spoke. She nuzzled her face deeper into his neck and closed her eyes.

"Later."

And so they lay, two small figures beneath a galaxy of stars.

**AN: Sorry for any mistakes, if there are any that I missed just comment in the reviews section. Please R&R, thank you**


	3. Chapter 3

When Maria awoke it was considerably darker. The sky was pitch black, but the stars still shone bravely down upon the world.

"One of those could be my planet" a deep, gruff voice said.

'_Michael's awake' _she thought to herself, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

Sitting up, she gave Michael a lazy half-smile. He didn't look at her, just continued staring up into the night sky.

"You wanna talk now?" she offered.

Michael grunted.

Maria yawned and then shook herself a little to wake her up a bit more. "Fine then. I'll start." She switched positions and smoothed down her hair. "We aren't a couple, yes?"

Michael decided to sit up too and rested his hands on his shins. "Well no" he shrugged. "Not really."

"Not really. But we just occasionally end up making out or naked in bed together."

Michael said nothing.

"So," pushed Maria, "we're not exactly 'just friends', are we?"

"Well yeah, but only because you dumped-" he started.

"Michael Michael Michael, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm _asking_ is why we can be neither of the two."

Again he shrugged.

"Help me out here."

Michael clucked his tongue and looked up again at the sky. "We can't because you're not ready to be committed to an alien. Cos... we disagree with each other about a lot of stuff. I don't know. Am I close?"

"Yes, ok, that's good." Maria lowered the tone of her voice ever so slightly. "So why is it that we can't be just friends?"

Michael finally made contact with her eyes. "I think we both know the reason for that."

As soon as he'd said it, he felt sappy and uncomfortable. He looked down at his hands and fidgeted with his fingers.

When he had no response, he glanced up to see Maria smiling, her eyes all pretty and warm. He couldn't help but have his eyes draw slowly down to her lips, and in that moment he forgot all about his awkwardness and couldn't think of anything but wanting to kiss her. She was so beautiful.

Just as he leant in closer, Maria backed off and cleared her throat, coming to her senses. Making out was _not_ why they were here.

Michael sat back on his hands, exhaling deeply, feeling vaguely irritated. He had never been able to empathize with those who got friend-zoned, until now.

Then he felt the lump in his pocket, and suddenly remembered.

"You know" he grumbled, "I'm not always an ass. I can be nice too."

"I know you can" half-smiled Maria, fiddling with her nails.

She turned her head at the sound of Michael's hand rustling deep in his pocket. Finally he found what he was looking for and produced...

...another large wad of greasy tissues.

Maria grimaced. "Ew, not MORE crappy hankies-"

Michael chucked the bundle onto her lap, rolling his eyes at her. "Just look inside, will you?"

Tentatively, she pulled the rag apart with the tips of her fingers, praying this wasn't another of Michael's 'boy' jokes. Then she saw a slip of silver fall to the ground, and her look of disdain turned to one of shock.

"Oh my god..."

A little locket lay on the ground, with the letter 'M' haphazardly scratched on to its surface. Picking it up, she pried the catch apart to show an early pic of Michael and herself in a photobooth, massive grins etched upon both of their faces.

"I did that a while before your bandcamp boyfriend showed up. I never got the chance to give it to you- well, before now."

Closing it again, she traced the tiny scratches that formed an 'M' shape with her thumb. "Did you do this too?"

He grinned in a way that was almost awkward. "Yup."

Maria smiled and, as if she had no control of her own emotions, she felt her eyes begin to fill with tears. She wasn't sad; just everything that had happened this day was proving to be too much. Flinging her arms around his neck, she hugged him as tightly as she could. "Thank you" she mumbled.

"Are you crying?"

Maria sniffed. "Please don't ruin this."

"So you like it?"

"Yes!" She chuckled a little at how dense he could be. Of course she liked it! What girl wouldn't?!

She felt his lips curve up a little on her shoulder. "You probably need to go back" he said.

"I probably do."

In actual fact, they really did. Maria's mum would go insane if her daughter didn't at least call before midnight, and seeing as it was past twelve there was almost bound to be trouble. But right now her mother's safe state of mind wasn't Maria's number one priority.

Michael took the locket from Maria's hand. "Turn round."

Maria did so as the boy behind her fidgeted with the necklace clasp behind her. When he finally got it, her turned her round to assess his work. "Pretty" he commented, and she beamed. But he barely even noticed the necklace. All he saw was the girl he had fallen in love those years ago, grinning up at him, and an unexpected wave of tenderness rushed through him. He realized that it didn't matter what happened after tonight, because nothing was going to change the way he felt about Maria DeLuca.

He was in love with her. And whether they ever became boyfriend and girlfriend again, he was always going to be in love with the ridiculous, gorgeous girl smiling up at him in a way that made him feel almost as if he had a home.

**AN: Didn't have time to edit, I've just been so busy recently! Thank you to everyone who has reviewed/followed/favourited- you really don't know how much it means to me! The next chapter will be the final one, and I'll try and get it up soonish. Again, please read and review, thank you so much!**


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